Page Curl Stickers: Arrow Icons

Page Curl Stickers: Arrow Icons

Here’s a fun and easy way to freshen up your clip art and icon. Using PowerPoint 2010’s new shape tools and the Edit Points feature, you can quickly give depth and perspective to basic shapes and icons.

Fully editable

The icon is comprised of three objects: arrow shape, outline and shadow. You can edit the icon by first ungrouping it and then modifying one or more of the objects.

The graphics use PowerPoint’s Office design color theme. To modify the colors, you can either select one of the pre-built color themes or create your own color theme.

Download the source files

Here's how I built the graphics

Here are a few screencasts that walk you through building the icons. The first three steps are basic shape techniques. In the final step, we bring it all together using Edit Points to create the peeling effect.

The more I look at the icons, the more I see things I'd like to change. But that's how everything goes, right? If you have any ideas or suggestions for making the effect better, please share them in the comments below.

Thanks Meg and Jill!
@Amanda - what are you having a hard time with? Selecting the points? Or moving them?
One thing that might help you move the points is turn off the Snap to Grid option. I find that makes it easier for precise editing. Right click the slide and select Grids and Guides and deselect the option from the menu.
PowerPoint doesn't let us is select multiple points or use the arrow keys to move the points. That would be a cool feature:-)

David - responding to your question to Amanda.... I have trouble with the Bezier handles in 2007.
Seeing them... they are so tiny. And they do things erratically... first there's only one handle and the next time I look there are two. Once I can see them and the handles stop appearing and disappearing, I don't have much trouble using them to get the curves and shapes I want.
Any suggestion on what I might be doing wrong?

Hi JP,
PowerPoint's anchor points are small and because we can't zoom in on them, it makes selecting them a challenge sometimes.
One thing I've noticed is PowerPoint seems to create multiple points. Not sure if this is exactly what's happening, but check this Screenr out at 1:53 http://screenr.com/8Hf
I tried selecting the handle and like you, could only see one. But after deleting the point, the point became a curved point with two handles. Maybe that has something to do with it? Not sure.
So maybe try right-clicking and deleting any trouble points you encounter to see if that helps. Worst case you undo it and restore the point.
If anyone else has any ideas or suggestions for better selecting anchor points, please share:-)

Tom - you can right-click each graphic and select Save as picture... to save the graphics as .png files. PNG files will retain the object transparency.
Here's a screencast on the process: http://www.screenr.com/0hE
I also updated the .zip file with some starter .png files!

Great tip as usal - thanks so much! I have a question on how to get the shape combine effect in PowerPoint 2007. Is that possible? I tried just grouping, but when effects are applied you can tell there are 3 separate shapes used to create the arrow.

@Shawnda - The combine shapes option isn't possible in 2007--it was a new feature in PPT2010. But you can still get the overall shape effect by working with shapes in PPT2007. Here's a screencast on how you can do it: http://www.screenr.com/hhf
Please let me know if you have any questions on that process.